Gordon Brown's statistical virtual worlds are not the only virtual world in politics (see below). There is another – which New Labour interestingly seems less at home in.

That is the virtual world of web 2.0 – brought to political life recently by the web-world-wizard, the BlackBerrying star with his own social networking website, Barack Obama. And it is completely changing the way politics – and candidates like me – work.

Yesterday, I enjoyed a fantastic roast in one of my very traditional local pubs. I am a loyal supporter of the traditional pub, and of the traditional roast (and its underrated healthy eating credentials).

Keen to capture the moment, I took a photo on my BlackBerry (above), and uploaded the photo from my BlackBerry to my Facebook page. It was up on the web while I hadn't left my seat and my roast was still steaming.

Just a few years ago, that wouldn't have been possible. Technology has revolutionised the way that we live, and the way politics works. As a candidate in the web-2.0 age, I am instantly connectable to friends and many potential voters. That means people demand very different things from their politicians. They want to know them in ways that were not possible before – they want to know them with their emotional intelligence as well as analyse what they say with their rational faculties.

And what is fascinating is that the man who rode the first wave of technology advancement, Tony Blair, who came to power in the same year I first used email, was so clunky in his use of it. The TV camera darling froze like an anachronism on his webcam broadcast.

And on this side of the Atlantic, it is the Conservatives who have embraced the new era of technology – with Webcameron, and blog giants such as ConservativeHome and Iain Dale's Diary who, from what I have heard, strike fear into the heart of many Labour blogosphere citizens.

Why is this? Is it because Matt D'Ancona is right, and the "post-bureaucratic age" where knowledge is democratised, not centralised, is quintessentially Conservative? Or is it because it is much harder to strike the "behind the headlines" gossipy tone of the blog if you are the party in power, and control becomes a far more serious issue?

It will be fascinating to watch how Obama, the leader of web-2.0 politics, uses the internet as he moves from the position of maverick outsider to authority figure of the nation. And interesting to see how Britain follows.

We cannot exist in a state where it is 'partisan' to tell the truth

If you want to solve a problem, you've got to be realistic about the situation you're tackling. And the bigger the threat, the more important it is to face the truth and start from there.

But suddenly, without fanfare, truth has become a political pariah if it does not fit Labour's script, and pointing it out becomes "partisan".

In August, the Office of National Statistics showed that the national debt was 43.3% - and had been for a year. But as if by magic there is now a new measure of national debt excluding Northern Rock, in a code called HF6W. And conveniently for Brown it shows the figures he so badly needs; the new figures alone slash national debt from 43% to 37%.

In fact, after the bank bailout, national debt will hit some 50% - a level not seen since the 1970s. And of course, those figures don't include other invisible debt-holes like PFI. Some argue that it is even worse still – and calculate that once all the accounting tricks are added in, the national debt is a truly extraordinary127% of GDP!

But, however high the real figure, it's based on this creation of a virtual world through cooking the books. Brown himself admits that the key to his plans is low national debt. By his own measure, he is guilty of economic mismanagement.

People may not like to hear the truth now, but when Brown's statistically created virtual world (a world in which Britain has low national debt) shatters, and the truth re-emerges in the shape of the real consequences of fixing the figures, we will like it even less.

The casualties of this statistician's trick will be real families, in real homes, struggling to pay real bills – under a real tax burden. They won't be able to ease their pain by creating a virtual world by cooking up a new data series.

That's the truth. It may hurt Brown, but it will hurt our country and its citizens a lot more.

• Charlotte Leslie is the Conservatives' parliamentary candidate for Bristol North West